The Demon that Never Leaves
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: And the only advantage he seems to have is that Duskmon will follow him instead of staying to hurt the innocents.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Warnings for (depending on what angle you approach it) hallucination induced paranoia and self-harm, and (from both sides of the fence), pill-hiding, insomnia/nightmares and suicide. I didn't think it was graphic enough for an M rating, but if anyone agrees, let me know and I'll change the rating.

Challenges:

Prompts in Steps Challenge, 5.03 - crimson

Valentines to White's Day Advent (2015), day 5 - green rose: write about a character who is sick - this sickness can be anything from minor to life-changing

Diversity Writing Challenge, g25 - fic that explores a psychiatric illness

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 **The Demon that Never Leaves  
** _Chapter 1_

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Duskmon wasn't there on the first night, but maybe that was because he just didn't remember it. Just a blurry moment of awakening, in which there was fear and sorrow and something wet, and then happiness and relief that washed over him like a warm blanket, and Kouji, bright but not painful to see, smiling through his tears. But the second day he was: appearing in morphine induced slumber and outside it as well, when Kouichi sat up too fast, head spinning and bile rising and thinking the nightmare was done.

It wasn't. He was there. In the corner. Watching silently as his previous host lurched forward, clutching at the blankets and fighting himself: against the acidic worm sliding up and out of his throat so he could just scream his name - except he couldn't, and he had to break that gaze otherwise he would have choked instead. And he coughed and retched and someone rubbed on his back and he twisted away until he caught the white coat - white, not black - and the distinctly human hands, and then he accepted the gesture. Because there had been only Duskmon there before. Only Duskmon and Duskmon brought no comfort: just fear and shame.

'Are you okay?' A doctor… it must be a doctor, was asking.

He was trembling now, and soaked, and the smell that drifted up to him made him shudder more but none of those could win against the need to look at that corner once more.

There was nothing there, and he couldn't quite make his throat and lips work right to ask if the doctor had seen him at all.

Stay a phantom of my mind. Please.

He wouldn't. Of course.

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They made him sleep. The doctors. The nurses. His mother. The medications. They sedated him for some sort of scan even after he promised he'd stay still for it and it wasn't fair, but apparently children never could stay still for such scans, especially if they were claustrophobic, and that made it general procedure. He wasn't claustrophobic. He wasn't afraid of the darkness either, but he fought against that sleep anyway because Duskmon was always there, hovering in his dreams, hovering when he woke up -

And nobody was there to keep him away when he slept. No sharp voices cutting through the silent assassin in the shadows. No bright lights to burn away his hiding places. No guardian to fight him off, make him leave, stuff him in a straight-jacket and a gag and a collar so he wouldn't keep on coming back like the bad memory he was.

But they couldn't. And he couldn't tell them either, not the whole truth.

As for the demon that stood in his corner.

'...sleep. It's just your head. Or the morphine. Or the fatigue. It'll all go away soon, promise.'

But Duskmon's eyes, red and boring into his very soul, promised something else entirely.

.

Duskmon wasn't there when there were others in his room, right? Why not?

Except he soon realised that was wrong, when they lowered the medications and the nausea and pain eased away too. When the flurry of doctors didn't mean his entire field of vision was taken up by them. When he could see the corners and the shadows still, despite the brighter lights, despite the crowd, and see that familiar black shadow looming the back wall, watching and waiting for his chance to strike again.

Of course, they didn't know that Duskmon was a phantom that was very real. They worried about things: hallucinations that were persisting despite the other symptoms easing off. The blabbing about a demon in his nightmares, when he woke up. The way he squirmed away from touches until he could see them: their colourful clothes, their human faces.

Words were tossed around that made his mother's face go grey. Some he knew. Some he didn't. Most he didn't care about because Duskmon was a reality and not something he'd made up. The others: his brother, his friends - they could attest to that. They did, in one of those rare, hopeful moments, where he thought it really might have been just a dream. It wasn't. Remembered him. Remembered where he'd come from. What he'd done.

And of course they did. It was too much to hope for an illusion. Too easy to accept he hadn't been in the wrong except he had and it was cowardly to want a way out of the hole he'd dug himself that didn't involve him hammering in the footholds and climbing up and out himself.

Duskmon was real. And he was there, always there. It didn't matter if there was no proof of his existence. Didn't matter if, still, he escaped before his brother and his friends came because they'd recognise him for the demon he really was, and then whatever carefully laid plans involved standing there as the silent and still doorman, day and night, would be gone.

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He spoke to it, sometimes. If it could be called a conversation despite Duskmon never have anything to say in return. And why did he need to speak? Kouichi was crumbling well enough without a word from the demon.

Not when anybody else was around, though. They disbelieved and worried enough. And not for long. He couldn't stare at that demon in the corner so long. Even if he couldn't look away and draw the covers over his head and pretend there was nothing there at all.

He had to ask. 'Why..?' was the most he could often manage. 'Why are you here?' 'Why won't you leave me alone?' But no answers. Never any answers. Just more questions that rose like bile in his throat until it burned and he gulped under the covers and tried very hard not to throw up again. Sometimes he managed it. Sometimes he didn't and a nurse came running to clean things up and he'd look dully at the mess because it was all Duskmon's fault but he'd have disappeared on him by then, his task, for that point in time at least, complete.

And then there were the nightmares, where Duskmon was a more active ghost: moving, moving his body like it was a puppet and the demon pulled the strings, and the soul would just cringe away: curl in a corner and scrunch his eyes shut so he didn't have to see, and block his ears so he didn't have to hear…

But sometimes he fought past that and watched, and heard. The grinding sound of metal against the wall, just waiting until it got to human flesh. And, behind the mask, he grinned, he laughed -

Kouichi wished there was something he could use to fight back.

.

The demon turned. Towards the closed door. Footsteps.

His breath caught in his throat. No. No!

It didn't matter who it was. The sword was coming up. Running along the wall again and he curled. He covered his ears. Wrenched his hands away again and his eyes open because someone was going to come through the door and they'd be dead if Duskmon got to them.

There had to be something. Something.

His breakfast, still on the tray. The cutlery. A spoon. A fork. A butter-knife. He grabbed them all and threw himself forward, towards the wall.

And screamed. Duskmon had turned to him instead, that blade punching into his palm and making him drop what he held.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Demon that Never Leaves**  
 _Chapter 2_

They bandaged up his hand and moved him to another ward: brighter, busier with lots of soft toys and things but nothing solid, nothing sharp, and he knew what they thought. He snapped at them, because they didn't believe him still, didn't understand. But he was grateful too. The constant watch meant that Duskmon could not easily sneak in and the only visits were in his nightmares.

And, of course, he stayed far away when the others visited, so they might convince him it was a delusion from the past and he'd be free access again.

They wouldn't. They wouldn't. But without Duskmon badgering him, he got better.

He had a new badgerer instead, and he might have grown to like that one if only she'd believe instead of humouring him.

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'So his name is Duskmon?'

Humouring him. She was humouring him again and he was pretty much humouring her back because that was the one waking time he could still see the demon, standing behind her with that cold smirk that told him to try as hard as he dared and fail again. But of course she couldn't see it. Whether it was because she simply couldn't let him out of her sight to turn around like that, or because only they kids would be able to see. How many adult eyes had brushed past the corner where it always stood.

But regardless of why, she pretended its shadow wasn't looming over him like that.

And Kouichi really had no choice but to pretend as well. Even if it could so easily unsheath its sword and slice her neck from ear to ear and then gut him like the pig for slaughter he'd become.

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They made him sleep, still. Gave him injections until they were sure he'd swallow the pills and although it felt incredibly narcissistic, he did it anyway until someone in one of the other kids showed him how to slip them into a corner of his mouth, behind his teeth, and then spit them out later. 'Because why should we put up with nightmares when they don't understand what it does to us?' she muttered scornfully. 'Get out faster when I don't have them to deal with too.'

She'd been here three times already, she said.

And she was right. Lying awake at night did wonders, because Duskmon was a silent shadow in the corner instead of the demon chasing him in his dream. It wasn't restful. Not at all. But the tiredness meant he could focus on other things more easily during the days: when doctors and nurses and counsellors and families and friends were there and making sure he wasn't going to stab his hand with a butter knife instead (except his brother and friends who seemed to hang on the edge of believing him). It was frustrating, but they were right. He had no proof. If anything, he had proof against the fact: the butter knife that had still been embedded in his palm when the nurse had come in, his fingers still curved around the hilt and no fingerprints on his wrist to show Duskmon's tight grip forcing his thrust astray. And no-one else had seen him. But none of that made him any less dangerous. Any less there. Because Duskmon had avoided the radar for a long time, in the digital world. And they had no defence when it finally showed itself, again.

Foolish to fight that, really. What could a weak little human do? But at least there was safety. Safety in numbers, for as long as Duskmon wanted to stay out of the radar. And safety in the light, in the distracting display of colours that tore his gaze away from the dark corner where he stood. He could even pretend there was nothing there, leaving the overhead television on at night and letting his vision tunnel. But when he slept, when the nightmares gripped him and Duskmon was larger than life, his eyes immediately sought out the corner and saw the confirming demon there.

And just what are you waiting for? Because what did implicating itself matter to a demon humanity couldn't properly explain?

And he'd work on ignoring it again. Ignoring it until the nightmare came back, or the sword.

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They let him go home after another few days. Kept him on medications and called him back for twice-weekly checkups and the tablets were easier to avoid, but harder to separate. Because when he had a migraine, he wanted his painkillers. He wasn't letting those slip down the drain. He needed them. The sleeping tablets, on the other hand, were more trouble than they were worth and he hoped he could convince his mother to not restock the script when they ran out. They were a pointless expense. The price he paid was a constant exhaustion he couldn't shake himself out of and they had other medications for that as well. Thinking it a mood imbalance; a traumatic side-effect, with some fancy name he hadn't bothered remembering because it wasn't that. The doctors just weren't listening. Not until he told them what he wanted to hear.

Duskmon still followed him. And when it was him and his mother at home, that was the worst. The most frightening. Because Duskmon could so easily do something to her but it followed him like a ghoul, a ghost, and so he did the only thing he could do in such a state: he kept his distance. Duskmon would have to get through him to get to her. Get through him to get to anyone - though it fled whenever Kouji approached and he wished Kouji would stay so he wouldn't have to see that demon again.

Sometimes, he'd wish instead that Duskmon would be the one to stay, so he'd finally be caught, or proven false. Because Kouichi couldn't believe Duskmon wasn't there until proven by one who'd seen him before - and Duskmon knew that perfectly well. That's why it was never there at the same time. Never confirmed.

Damn him.

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They - counsellor and doctor - asked him about the scratches. He opened his mouth to say it was Duskmon - Duskmon who'd scratched in him in his dream when he fled - but then closed it again. Switch to simply "nightmares" because nothing in his bag of medication is supposed to stop those nightmares. They talk about switching his sleep medication as though that's going to help. They wouldn't. He'd read enough about it to know that dreams and restful sleep, for whatever bizarre reason, came hand in hand. Sedatives were fine for dreamless sleep - but no-one woke up from a sedative feeling refreshed. They just didn't work that way. They weren't supposed to work that way, so why were the doctors pretending they did?

Sometimes, he thought Duskmon found that funny. Is that what you want? For me to be stuck in that dream?

And it made a frightening amount of sense. After all, he'd been comatose the first time he'd fallen victim to that demon.

And now it was a battle as to whether the need for some uninterrupted sleep or Duskmon's patience ran out first.

Though he was stuck either way.


	3. Chapter 3

**The Demon that Never Leaves**  
 _Chapter 3_

He won their little quarrel. The only sort of quarrel he had any chance of winning because Duskmon was stronger in every other way. But perseverance. He could do that. He did. Duskmon got tired of hiding and stepped into the shadowed street. If only the lamplights were on! They weren't. It was broken, or the electricity was out. One a few metres away was flickering. The others didn't even do that. Just the headlights from passing cars that the pedestrians used to light their way and that was more than enough to see in when the sun was hidden by a light sheet of grey.

Of course, no-one saw him. Just Kouichi, avoiding home because he knew his mother and, with that look in the other's eyes, that was a good call.

Because she was nowhere near when Duskmon stepped forward again. Swung his sword. Making the person passing by stumble and fall into the path of oncoming traffic, and then disappearing like he'd never been there at all, and the world was blurring and spinning all in one, high-pitched and panic like a kettle with water boiling inside.

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'You had a fright, didn't you?' said the counsellor sympathetically. 'Someone gets jolsted onto the road right in front of you. And the other guy…'

That was the one who'd been right in front of Duskmon. The mask the demon used. The guy who had to take the blame, even in his own mind because how was he supposed to know whether he'd shoved the guy by accident or not, until everyone else said that was the case and made him believe it.

It was a one-time thing for him, though. He didn't have a demon dogging his footsteps. And the other guy had gotten away with only scrapes and bruises too. Lucky. Or on purpose. Duskmon's threat to him just as easily as a fluke.

'A fright,' he repeated. He supposed that was one way of putting it.

Duskmon wasn't content to sitting quietly forever.

The question was what Kouichi could do about it.

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He could only avoid the house so often without hurting or frightening his mother, and moreso after that...incident. He wondered how much Duskmon knew about social rules and human behaviours. Not much, if all it'd had to go on was Kouichi: an amnesic spirit at the introduction, and now a kid with a head injury and either hallucinations or a stalking demon and who had to go to counselling sessions as well as medical check ups twice a week. Funny how losing one's memory could be an advantage in that aspect. Assuming Duskmon hadn't picked up much more in the times he was apart from him.

Or maybe he couldn't be apart from him, and simply faded into non-existence. It had ward to know, in a world where accidents and more purposeful incidents. It was easier to ignore them, pretend nothing was happening, nothing would happen - except Duskmon had struck twice now, close to him, where he could see, and who knew what the third strike would take out.

.

'Do you still see Duskmon?'

Yes. 'No.' Then, a bit more honestly: 'Just in dreams.'

The counsellor nodded, oblivious to the sword in its sheath behind her, and the demon that held it. 'You don't look like you're sleeping any more. Dreams getting worse?'

Yes. 'No. I've just been busy catching up on school.' Another lie. Though he had been doing that. In the library when the library was open because it was cool and crowded and bright and distracting all rolled into one.

'That's good to hear.' But she looked sympathetic. And a little suspicious. She'd caught one of her lies. Or was used to people lying to her. One of them.

But she couldn't do much about it, except schedule another appointment. He wondered if that was all she could do. Make sure she kept seeing the liars until they slipped up or the lie became the truth.

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Sometimes he went up to the roof after check ups. Sometimes there were other patients or staff on break up there too. Mostly though, he was alone. Just the cold fence he could grip and watch the birds settle on the other side, safe from human feet and fingers. And Duskmon never crossed the line either. Maybe it was a cage for him as well.

How many floors was the hospital anyway? Around ten, he thought. He wasn't entirely sure.

And did Duskmon know how many floors a person could fall until they'd certainly be dead at the end of it?

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His mother's small cry made his head explode in blinding pain, and he cursed himself for letting it get so close, right behind her. Who cared what people thought? He should have just dragged it away -

Like he could have. His palm still had the scar from where the breadknife had stabbed into it. And what was in reach he could throw? The chair? Duskmon could so easily move out of the way and then his mother would take the blow and where would that get them?

Still, when his mother's gentle voice broke through the haze, he realised he'd tightened his grip on the chair anyway.

That would be pointless. But there had to be some other way.

Only her mother's hand was bleeding. But it could easy have been bigger, or get bigger.

How long could he drag Duskmon away?

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How long to do you plan on staying out here?

That was his own thought: the cowardly part of him that wanted to give up and accept that DUskmon was just a hallucination plaguing him, that the accidents were just freak incidents and not even related, and that he was simply letting his demons rule his life. But he couldn't trust coincidence. Not when it came to people being hurt. Not when it came to people's lives.

And so here he was. Sitting fairly high up in the tallest and sturdiest tree in the park, with Duskmon keeping sentinel down below. Which was a foolish position for the demon, because how was he supposed to climb down with the other there? Even if he wanted to come down, he couldn't. He'd be willingly climbing down to those sheathed blades.

So they stayed like that. And neither of them really noticed the air growing colder. They both however noticed the silence that descended, and the darkness that came with the night. Silence that screamed in his ears, that drew his eyes from the moving lights in the distance - the ever-present flow of traffic on major roads - to the glinting red eyes that watched him from below. They'd climb, eventually. He had too many reasons not to climb but Duskmon would climb when it tired.

And it did. Some time in the middle of the night when even the trickle of traffic was thin with drought. And there was no-where higher to climb. No escape except… 'If you keep coming, I'll fall.' He was about five metres up the tree, by his reckoning, just under the last half metre of sparse, fragile, branches.. Six and the council would have cut it down, unless it was a heritage tree and he didn't think it was. There was nothing special about the park. Not even any swings. Just a small pond and lots of winding walkways. A popular place for people to walk their dogs. And to sit under trees and have a picnic, or simply draw or read in its shade.

Duskmon turned his masked face to him, like he didn't understand.

Kouichi didn't bother explaining. The odds were in his favour either way. Part of the reason why he'd climbed so high. And...funnily enough...the idea didn't terrify him as much as he'd expected it to. And… my demons can't live without me, right?

Duskmon started climbing again. He'd known he would.

It was so easy to lean back and just...let go.

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Post A/N: Just in case that seems like an open ending, the general theory for fall related deaths is that 50% of falls from a height three times the person's body height are fatal. Digimon's unfortunately not one of those shows that gives every little detail about the character, including height in weight, so I assumed he's around or under 150cm, which puts the 50% fatal height at 4.5 metres. Also, council (or the Australian council anyway, don't know about Japan) has a limit on tree heights being 6m (barring special cases, and I dunno if public parks count as those special cases, and in any case, trees thin out as they grow taller) so the tree had to be between 4.5 and 6m. Hence it's around 5.5, with the last 0.5 pretty much unclimbable. Less common than a suicide off a building or a bridge, but perfectly possible. And past 50% fatality, you assume the person's dead rather than they're alive.

About sleeping pills (more relevant in the previous chapter, but keeping all the notes together), most of them do cause nightmares because rest and the dreaming stage of sleep go hand in hand. If you avoid the dreaming stage, eg. with sedatives or lucid dreaming, you don't get the rest/resetting part of sleep and you'll still be tired the next day. Keep on going, and you'll be sleep deprived or worse. People with nightmares will often not take their sleeping pills for that reason; they're of better use with insomnia (ie. can't sleep vs. won't sleep).

As for whether Duskmon was really there or not… beats me. It would have taken Duskmon/Kouichi's delusion and one of the other LWs in the same room to sort that out, and Duskmon/Kouichi's delusion cleverly avoided that scenario, so Duskmon never did tell me whether he was there or not.


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